OPERA America draws on resources and expertise from within and beyond the opera field to advance a mutually beneficial agenda that serves and strengthens the field through programs in the following categories:

Creation: Artistic services that help artists and companies increase the creativity and excellence of opera productions, especially North American works;

Presentation: Opera company services that address the specific needs of staff, trustees and volunteers;

Enjoyment: Education, audience development and community services that increase all forms of opera appreciation.

New York City is home to the nation’s largest concentration of performing and creative artists, professional training institutions and music businesses. A majority of OPERA America’s Professional Company Members hold or attend auditions in New York City annually, and opera leaders from Europe and around the world are regular visitors.

In response to the pressing need for appropriate space in New York by members who suffered from the lack of good audition and work facilities in the city, OPERA America created the National Opera Center. The Opera Center serves many functions that support the artistic and economic vitality of the field by providing its constituents with a range and level of services never before possible.

OPERA America serves members across the entire opera field through research, publications and services in support of the creation, performance and enjoyment of opera. Our work is only possible with the generous support of donors dedicated to the future of opera in America.

Gluck has been, in some ways, a victim of his success. He’s
most typically cast in the role of “reformer” — which is to say,
he’s secured a prominent place in music history books. We’re
all familiar with the image of Gluck as a pivotal link between
baroque excess and more modern sensibilities.

Yet such historically minded, linear thinking sometimes encourages
the impression that Gluck is merely a transitional chapter — and
one superseded by those he went on to inspire. Meanwhile, clichés
of his music as the quintessence of “noble purity” can be offputting.
They’re uncomfortably reminiscent of the impatience Peter
Schaefer’s Mozart (in Amadeus) voices for composers who “sound
as if they shit marble.”

But the spate of revivals of Monteverdi, Rameau and Handel have
proved that operas once dismissed as dated, historical artifacts can
still hold sway over audiences. Could it be Gluck’s turn now for a
similar process of reevaluation? It’s still too early to judge whether a
lasting revival is underway, but — after a long period of neglect on
American stages — Gluck has become, for the moment at least, a
hot ticket thanks to several new high-profile productions.

Opera Boston and Boston Baroque presented a well-received
Alceste in 2005 (set in a 19th-century Shaker milieu). This past
season, Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera both
mounted Robert Carsen’s stark, claustrophobic vision of what is
generally considered Gluck’s masterpiece, Iphigénie en Tauride,
featuring Susan Graham. Seattle Opera and the Metropolitan
Opera are staging another new production of the opera this fall
(the first joint venture by both companies). It will mark the first
time the Met has presented Iphigénie en Tauride since Richard
Strauss’s version was given in 1916. And a true rarity, Gluck’s prereformist
comic opera L’Ile de Merlin, found its way to the stage
in a production by iconoclast Christopher Alden for last summer’s
Spoleto Festival.

Even Orfeo ed Euridice, the one Gluck opera which has kept a
toehold in the repertory, is generating a fresh buzz. The Met chose
it as the vehicle for choreographer Mark Morris’s directorial debut
in last season’s Isaac Mizrahi-clad new production (the first staging
there in over three decades). Glimmerglass Opera just devoted its
entire festival to the figure of Orpheus, including Lillian Groag’s new
production of Orphée et Eurydice (Berlioz’s version of the Gluck
opera), while Toronto’s Opera Atelier staged the 1774 French
version in May.

So what accounts for the renewed interest in Gluck? There’s no
question that Susan Graham’s advocacy of Iphigénie en Tauride
has been crucial. “I sang Iphigénie for the first time in 2000 in
Salzburg,” Graham said, “and it was a real turning point for me
as I was graduating from Mozart mezzos to big-girl parts. It was
incredibly satisfying to discover the stature and musical astuteness
in this role. The character’s range of expression has a profundity
throughout, and it challenges me to find the right vocal colors to
maintain that arc through the opera.”

“Susan Graham is the reason this opera is having a revival,”
according to Stephen Wadsworth, who is directing the Seattle
Opera/Met co-production (Graham sings Iphigénie in New York,
while Nuccia Focile is cast for Seattle). “The combination of inner
intensity she finds in the character and the way her voice stretches
to this soprano range is incredible.”

Wadsworth also pointed out that “there has not been a consistent
tradition of serious good acting in opera until quite recently” —
and Gluck’s Racine-inspired reform operas “are dramas of inner
action, the most subtle and complex for actors.” Indeed, Gluck’s
uncompromising vision of “a fusion of storytelling through dance
and choral participation and principal action in a way that’s truly
unified,” as Wadsworth described it, is virtually a manifesto for
artistic collaboration.

Fellow directors share Wadsworth’s sense of excitement about
the possibilities staging Gluck affords. Speaking during a break
from rehearsals for the Glimmerglass Orphée et Eurydice, Lillian
Groag enthused about the freedom from “psychological realism”
that Gluck’s mythic subject matter allows. “We are much more
theatrically conscious, more aware of possibilities of interpretation.”
Orpheus represents “the proto-myth for artists and for coming to
terms with death. It shows that the horror of the world as we know
it can stop for a moment of incredible peace when the beasts are
tamed.”

“Gluck is on the cutting edge of the intense display of the baroque
into something more introspective, the romantic mentality,” said
Marshall Pynkoski, founder of Toronto’s baroque-centered Opera
Atelier (which staged its own Iphigénie en Tauride in 2003).
“When Marie Antoinette brought Gluck to Paris, she was the most
fashionable woman in the world. She knew she wasn’t bringing in
some charming gallant composer but the bad boy who was said
to be destroying opera. It must have been thrilling to see an opera
that lasted only as long as it needed to, with dancers shouting on
stage.”

Along with today’s keener sense of the necessary dramatic values,
we seem to be better positioned for a Gluck renaissance as a result
of the period-instrument revolution. “The early music revival has
opened an enormous repertoire to us,” noted conductor Patrick
Summers, whose intuitive grasp of the score was a big part of
the success behind the Chicago and San Francisco productions.

“We’ve only recently examined how these works can exist in
a modern repertory opera house with large orchestras trained
specifically for the symphonic operas of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. As a conductor who covers a wide range of styles, Gluck
has been revealed to me as one of the greatest of the musical
dramatists, in his simplicity, directness and lean emotional potency.”

“Until the serious discovery of period style in the 1985 Bach-
Handel bicentenary year,” Wadsworth observed, “we had a
highly inappropriate way of playing this music. I remember the
old Balanchine Orfeo at the Met in the ‘60s, which was all about
pretty dances in front of pretty scenery. Now we have a much more
appropriate style in our ears.”

Beyond the dramatic and musical values paving the way for
new appreciation of Gluck, there’s another appeal. “I think that
audiences are very eager to enjoy myths,” remarked Seattle
Opera general director Speight Jenkins. “Witness the success all
over America of the Ring. And there is no myth more interesting
or relevant than that of the house of Atreus.” Susan Graham
agreed. “When we did Iphigénie in Chicago, the administration was
concerned that the audience didn’t know the opera. But at every
performance they were on their feet screaming — it’s such an
intensely compelling story.”

how to order the abortion pill online abortion pill abortion pill online

To have your company’s photos included in the header rotation, send photos that are at least 1200px wide and 550px tall to Webmaster@operaamerica.org. Please note that submission of photos does not guarantee inclusion.

All OPERA America facilities are handicapped accessible. The National Opera Center features ground-level entry with elevators to the venue. All spaces are wheelchair accessible, and modular seating can be arranged to accommodate wheelchair users for all programs and performances. Handicapped accessible restrooms are available on all floors.